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Chad Bumphis & Jonas Gray = more explosive offense

Slot Receiver: Chad Bumphis's 45 yd catch & run was longer than any of Davone Bess's receptions (in 5 years with Miami).

Power Back: Jonas Gray's 29 yd run was longer than any of Daniel Thomas's runs (in 2 years with Miami).

And that was just from a handful of touches in the HOF game..

so what your saying is the blocking sucked right?

---------- Post added at 10:37 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:35 AM ----------

gray realky shined against the 5th stringers on that run but hell he is our 4th string

actually Gray was in in the 2nd qtr. That makes it 2nd/3rd stringers. Selvie was in in the 4th qtr.

actually, all the RB's played good in run game. Gillisle is a nice addition. I see it as these guys pushing D. Thomas. Gray gives you some power at the GL and 3rd/4th and 1.
 
I liked Gray in ND - for as long as he lasted before the injury, but we would be doing him no favours painting him as something he won't ever be. He's a north south type, with a great centre of gravity and a nose for the endzone, good hands, good pad level and he falls forward. He doesn't have a change up of speed, nor does he have much lateral agility. There's potential for a role for him on the roster in my view, but its an outside chance. Thigpen is nailed on, Miller is nailed on, Gillislee is unlikely to be left on the PS, though that's where I would have him. I wasn't a fan of the Daniel Thomas pick (who was?!), but right now he's our second best RB. He played fine on Sun with the limited snaps he got.

If Lane was let go and either Rodriguez was cut also or Gillislee was put on the PS, then Gray might make it. I don't see Thomas being cut at this point.

As for Bumphis, it's questionable whether he'll make it as an NFL receiver. He has a lot going for him, kid has play speed, whatever about 40 times (4.52 on his pro day). He has hustle and he wants to get downfield. That brings me to his catching style. Something I think Rishard Matthews needs to work on is being more "catlike" and fluid when he's catching the ball, so that he's turning downfield for more yards quicker. He's very deliberate at the moment, his catch and his run after catch are two completely separate actions.

Bumphis is the opposite. Kid is always looking to get downfield. Sometimes that comes at the expense of ball security. If you watch him, he takes the ball very late, he often waits for it to come across his body so that he's around the corner and facing upfield as soon as possible. In college, maybe you can get away with that. In the pros, he'll either have to take the ball earlier or get serious separation. Given he isn't lightning fast, he won't always get huge separation, so he'll have to temper his tendency to catch it as he turns upfield. If he does that though, he loses a lot of what make him an interesting player. A genuine catch 22, IMO, pardon the pun.

He doesn't have a concentration problem and the juggled ball returned for a TD was certainly a miscommunication issue rather than a lapse or laziness by Bumphis. He's an intriguing player, but I suspect his standout trait, YAC, won't translate as well to the pros as it might for others. I'd like to be wrong because he's a player you definitely want to see do well. Not unlike Matthews, who is also a hustler.
 
Unsure about Gray.

Bumphis looks like he has excellent vision, and knows how to use his blockers well once he's moving downfield. IMHO, that's more important than pure speed when you're playing out of the slot.
 
well against the better players gray did nothing so its a possible argument

He also had limited carries. The point I am making is that looking at him and his characteristics, I like him. I definitely want to see more carries against the 1s so we can get an idea of what the end result may be.
 
I know Jonas Gray had a leg injury last year, but I'm a little bit more concerned with Daniel "The wind just changed direction and I sustained a concussion" Thomas
 
I have to agree with KTOWNFINFAN here. I don't know their 40 times but Bumphis looked reeeeeeeeally slow to me in that game. On that long reception he had, I would expect a good slot receiver to outrun the safety and go the distance. Imagine Mike Wallace catching that ball.

Same with Gray. Again, I don't know 40 times of either Gray or Daniel Thomas and I don't care really. It's all about game speed and I'm not as down on Daniel Thomas as almost everyone else is on this board. Last year, the few carries Daniel Thomas had in the early games before he sustained his first concussion, he showed more speed hitting the hole and more power than Reggie Bush. I liked what I saw from him and I would not want to write him off just yet.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that Gray looked a lot slower than Daniel Thomas in the HOF game. A lot.

Gray ran a faster 40 time at the combine than Thomas. Perhaps allowing the hole to develop rather than running up the OL's rear end made him "look slower" to you.
 
apparently gray has more drops than any other player in camp, philbin wont like that, if he wants to make the roster that needs to improve
 
I thought Bumphis was ok, but I think he capitalized more on a poor secondary than he did on his own skill set. I'm definitely intrigued by him though.

Jonas Gray was unimpressive to me. I thought he ran hard, but he doesn't have that speed or burst I was expecting. Some of the faster D's in the NFL would shut him down. We had some good run blocking on a few of his runs too, and I thought he should have had more yards.
 
Bumphis could be our number 4 receiver and Davis our number 5. Gray did look slow so he either replaces Daniel Thomas or goes to the practice squad. Gillesllie would get plucked if he goes to the practice squad and should be our number 3 back.
 
Gray ran a faster 40 time at the combine than Thomas. Perhaps allowing the hole to develop rather than running up the OL's rear end made him "look slower" to you.

I think his torn ACL actually made him slower, not just "look slower".
 
Neither Gray nor Thomas has much burst, comparing both to Lamar Miller is a bad joke.

IMO once Gillespe gets the pas protections down, Philbin cuts one or both depending on roster waiver pickups.
 
Bumphis could be our number 4 receiver and Davis our number 5. Gray did look slow so he either replaces Daniel Thomas or goes to the practice squad. Gillesllie would get plucked if he goes to the practice squad and should be our number 3 back.


Matthews is our number four, but quite a long way - unless the injury is worse than expected
 
they have certainly shown enough that I want to see them against the 2s.

---------- Post added at 08:18 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:16 AM ----------

I think his torn ACL actually made him slower, not just "look slower".
meh, I'd want to see him run a few more before deciding he was/is slower. could be like anyone just worried about the knee.
 
I'm not saying Bumphis is Mike Wallace fast but his 40 was a 4.55 compared to Bess' 4.65. IN running .1 is a big difference. To say he didn't out run the safety on that play, so what, Matt Johnson runs a 4.53 and had the angle. I like what I saw, hopefully he gets more reps against the tougher competition so we can see what he's got. Going against the SEC doesn't hurt anyone's ability to get open.
 
I like those two players a lot but let's chill on assigning the word "explosive" to them because neither is very fast.

My favorite was recently on MiamiDolphins.com after a practice reporters were interviewing Chad Bumphis and one reporter kept trying to ask Chad about his SPEED and how big a part of his game it is that he has such speed and can go deep. Chad was trying to be as polite as he could talking about how he plays the slot and works the middle but the reporter wouldn't give in, again he's talking about Chad's SPEED and going deep and eventually Chad was like "I don't really run many deep routes." You could tell he just wanted to grab the guy and say, "You know I'm not very fast, right?"

Cracked me up.

The thing that does intrigue me about Chad Bumphis though is despite his lack of speed he has a penchant for creating big plays. It may not translate during the regular season AT ALL. In fact with 4.55 speed and jump/agility measures that don't really stand out, I'd say the odds are it won't. But he averaged 16 yards a catch in the SEC while being overwhelmingly his team's most productive receiver, with 12 touchdowns on his 58 catches.

I believe catches of 25 yards or more is the cutoff Joe Philbin uses for what he deems "explosive" plays. This year at Miss St, Bumphis caught balls of 72 yards (TD), 68 yards, 58 yards (TD), 42 yards (TD), 40 yards, 28 yards, 27 yards (TD), 25 yards (TD) and 25 yards.

Then every time he's gotten into a game situation since the season ended, he's created another big play.

In the Shrine game he had a big 57 yard touchdown catch and run off a slightly tipped pass. In the Scrimmage he had a big 28 yard catch on 4th down. Then in the preseason game he ends up with a 45 yard catch and run. On all three occasions I believe those were the biggest plays of the day for his team.

It's a little uncanny and something to keep an eye on.
 
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